My name is Alyson, I am 31 years old, and I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. My passion for figure equality comes from my own life long struggles with weight. I do not remember a time when I was not the biggest kid in my class. I was always the tallest and then I became the roundest. I quickly developed a distain for my own reflection. Up until a year ago I have always hated my body and I punished it in many ways.
In elementary school, I was bullied, teased, and beat up. Middle school was the same. I was fat and miserable. I did not feel pretty. I started diet pills in 7th grade. I started binging and purging in 8th grade. By high school I was abusing myself in the worst ways. I wrote about my high school experience here; My diary.
After high school my weight went up and down, over and over. By the time I was 25 I was 300 pounds! I lived with it. I was fashionable. I had friends. I had a job I loved. I was making 300 pounds work for me, until a moment in my bathroom changed my life forever.
**WARNING** I'm about to get seriously honest.
Everything changed for me the day I could not reach around myself. I sat on the toilet unable to reach around. I did what I had to do and then burst into tears. I actually cried myself to sleep on the bathroom floor that night. I had lost the empowered female I had told myself I was. I was strong enough to be big. I was strong enough to not let the stares, comments, and almost needing to purchase an extra airplane seat make me feel bad about myself. I put on my happy face everyday. Deep down I knew I was lying to myself. I was not happy. I was miserable. I realized I was depressed and stuck - but then I had the realization that I didn't have to settle for this being my life. October of 2007 I signed up for Weight Watchers and proceeded to lose 125 pounds over the next year and a half. My entire life changed. Forever. I promised myself I would NEVER go back to 300 pounds and I have kept my weight off for 6 years now. The biggest challenges have come from being in a new body. One that did not end up like a super model. I had to learn who the new face in the mirror was. I did not know her, I had never seen her before. My problems were not solved at the end of my weight lose journey. No one told me I would actually have a whole new set of problems fall in my lap.
I still struggle with weight issues. I am still a food addict. I still see a fat girl in the mirror. However, I am also a runner and I enjoy cooking and eating healthy. I work everyday to repair the mental damage that simply became apart of my everyday thought process. I am not perfect. No one is. I have stretch marks. Everyone does. My thighs touch. So do the thighs of most people. I created New Figure Forward as a place to be deeply honest about my body and my struggles at all of my weights. I created my blog to be a place where women (and men) could come together and empower each other with honesty.
A passage from a pervious blog I wrote :" I will never be a super model and neither will anyone else. There is no such person. I like this reality; there is a lot less pressure realizing no one has a blemish free body. I am done playing dumb to a culture that assumes I don't know models and actresses are being Photoshopped. I will not allow these fantasy images to influence the acceptance of my body. I am human, I am normal, and my body is healthy and strong. I choose to love myself, to value myself, and to cherish my body. I will now be removing the "sucker" sticker off my forehead. No one can make me feel bad about myself anymore."
And with that I took control over the images I see everyday. I do not read magazines any more. "Cosmo" went into the trash and does every month. I follow plus size models and other curvy empowered women on Facebook and Instagram. I love my body so much more when I see other bodies that look just like me. I look at these women and I think they are beautiful. I am beautiful. You are beautiful. I am ending my own self abuse and I hope to inspire others to do the same. Learning to love myself is not easy and everyday I have to keep working on it. I hope to encourage someone to do the same, to shut off the hateful inner monologue and embrace their body, however it maybe shaped!!
My weight loss gave me a new figure
and I am pushing forward!!!
Welcome to New Figure Forward!!
